This call was on Wednesday night and Boma New Zealand had organised 4 speakers. These are my notes from this session.
You can watch the videos individually here:
Claire Amos: the Principal of Albany Senior High School, co-founder of DisruptED and and a board member for NetSafeNZ and 21C Skills Lab
Claire has been doing DisruptEd interviews to try and capture what educators have been noticing. The thing that matters most is wellbeing, not about teaching, learning or assessment but making sure they all feel safe and well. We know they can't learn when stressed and it's hard for teachers when they are unwell.
Claire has been doing DisruptEd interviews to try and capture what educators have been noticing. The thing that matters most is wellbeing, not about teaching, learning or assessment but making sure they all feel safe and well. We know they can't learn when stressed and it's hard for teachers when they are unwell.
Where online learning is working is where there is a connection. A connection between school, whānau and the community.
Less is better - you can't do as much as you do in class. Forced to think about what really matters.
Create space in the curriculum
Create space in the day to go deep and wide
Need to have a combination of structure and flexibility
Home isn't school - you can't transfer straight across
Would do better if student centered at school - they would have more agency
They did Mon, Tue structured, then Wed-Fri student led - students loved that
Created agency, self direction and managing time and space
A challenge: The digital divide
OK if already using online platforms, they transitioned easily.
Real cost of digital divide is not about tools but about social justice. They need to be able to connect and still learn.
We need to embrace digital tools but realise we don't change overnight.
The reality is that education is ultimately quite inflexible. We need to design and prepare the new normal that we want.
Notice, take stock and redesign.
Whatever we design has to be agile - we may move in and out of levels. Needs to be a robust powerful experience
How do we measure success? NCEA has it's place but need to move beyond the traditional
Concept of personal constructs of success. Not our place to tell a young person what success looks like. Could be a portfolio of evidence. No one measure of success. Work with them to define what they want for themselves. 20th Century skills. The moment we turn it into a criteria it becomes redundant. Success is when they believe in themselves and can contribute.
Opportunity to consciously and critically integrate Te Ao Māori
Stop being seen as a school in isolation - be a learning hub/community hub - like a marae
A lot we can take from Māori constructs and community to reimagine school. At the moment we are still in the Western industrial age. Use the Māori view lens then we'd have a good educational model.
Working with nature - Green School - see below
Meeting needs of diverse learners and ESOL - think more collaboratively about resourcing
NCEA Hackathon Resource Group - to share ideas and resources
Virtual Learning Network - online courses and resources
Power of school and a platform such as Te Kura - we already have an online school - what would that have looked like if we had access to all of that during this time?
Communities of Online Learning (COOLs) - these had concerns about business - what if we had those?
Could have schools networked across geographical areas, not just Kāhui Ako
Network/Collaboration/Sec schools online - where teachers are available and can cater for diverse learners and ESOL
Designing powerful online learning takes skill
We are not taught instructional design
Value in Portfolios of Personal Excellence (POPE) - they do impact projects at her school. This has earned them scholarships and opportunities in business. Sometimes we determine that NCEA has too much weight and value. Do impact projects need to be assessed to be valuable? Huge believer in soft skills - Design thinking, agile, collaborative, communicate, self directed
Ideal Learning structure:
Co-Learning hubs - Yr 0-13 learning space and a location for health and wellbeing. Co-working innovation with community as well
In and out of spaces as needed. Teachers there to open eyes and guide through the journey. Learning doesn't just happen in Yrs 1-13, it happens throughout life.
We get caught up on subjects and year groups - trying to keep the adults happy
Self directed learning schools in Canada - students come together for home room then work how and where they want to. This is the beauty of what we see in Primary Schools. Student have time to be self directed, but want some structure. Work with community groups, iwi, whānau
Teacher shave thrived where they already use UDL in normal practice. This online learning has shone a light on some people's gaps in practice.
Are teachers digitally literate? How can we use tech to be more inclusive and meet the needs of diverse learners?
Passion is the key to a great teacher
Dr Melanie Riwai-Couch: Kaihautū Māori and education consultant for Evaluation Associates Ltd, and experienced researcher, evaluator and change manager for kāhui ako.
Team worked through surveys that were gathered through social media. Thought they would get 20 or 30 but got 100 overnight. Wanted to make sure the perspectives of parents were not lost
The name wanted to capture a new way of being - the partnership between home and school. Other names undermined the learning at home each day.
Doesn't matter what school wants - what happens in my home is what I want to happen.
Identified some benefits that would be good to carry over into school
How happy were parents with the work sent home? 50% gave a 4 or 5 but 25% only gave it a 1 or 2
If school didn't have a culturally sustainable practice then that was magnified online.
What's the best way to gather voice? Didn't use case studies but used pools of stories. Have conversations with communities.
Do we engage with parents and communicate or do we tell them things?
Parents - are they informed consumers or do we say "this is how we define success" and "this is what's important to us". Need to include the voice of parents. Best way to start is to start.
In the report they have included questions that you can use to help reflect on practice. Take back to your own setting.
Māori and Pasifika realities may not be the same as ours.There are questions to ask now and some to ask later. All the questions are designed form themes identified in the data. Constantly reflective.
How can we not be tokenistic in Māori and Pasifika?
The role that complexity plays - equity shouldn't be the end goal - devices are just a milestone on the path to reach potential. It's not enough to just have a conversation. Parents have their own perspective on their children. Need to engage beyond the surface. Her own children use identity, language and culture to grow.
Provocations - things to think about:
Focus on getting devices into homes - need them there to be able to engage
Homes are sacred spaces - no-one asked me about hundreds of people online coming into my home every day
Pasifika - loving home being calm and peaceful, it's a spiritual calm during the day
This is a chance to understand learning and how they can apply it to their own setting and reality
What are we going to go back to? Don't lose the learning. Māori and Pasifika parents have perspectives we can learn from. Need to take our parents with us into the future.
Thesis - a chapter on iwi educators defining success. Want them to achieve NCEA and be literate but also be proud and strong in their culture and to return home to serve their communities.
Really important to many Pasifika families - a right of transition - not just the child but the family as well. Want them to achieve all they can but be a whole person. Need to create conditions in schools to enable them to feel like that.
Rachel and Michael Perrett: Founders of Green School New Zealand which uses a community-integrated, entrepreneurial way of learning with a focus on exciting and empowering students to lead the way sustainably.
Redesigning Education for a long time. Did Green School in Bali for 11 years.
Want to engage young learners as individuals who learn in unique ways
Sustainable caring for our planet
Creating a curriculum that addresses real world problems and engage students with joy, resilience and optimism
High respect values - entrepreneurial spirit to allow them to be changemakers
Whole community involved
Bring people along on a journey
Much of what they do is old knowledge, old wisdom and new future. Pioneering spirit. Authentic self directed learning in a natural context. 600 teachers applied before they even advertised.
Green School Compass - REAL (Relationships, Experiences, Action, Local)
Relationships - self/community/nature - this trumps procedures every time
Culture trumps strategy
Iwi first - needed to earn their place there
Engagement is extensive and rich.
Māori blessing and powhiri - looked to reach consensus rather than just consult
Parent are essential - need to go on a journey with them to create a sustainable future. Have The Bridge where they can have coffee, the internet - co-working space. Parent have rich skills to share - can park and play
Socio economic background - schools in Bali, Mexico and South Africa. 70 different cultures in Taranaki
Budget of 25NZ, 25Aus, 50 International
Using Bali formed Vision and values
Tweaked their content and curriculum with others
Focus on starting local and moving global
Community trusts and groups and sustainability. Support them and integrate with them and business. Public Sector support been cherished and supported. Had 7 weeks of this year before lockdown. Turned a dairy farm into an International Destination Private School
Academic rigour - sounded themselves with people to guide them
Hope to open up after school hours for sustainability studies and have camps in the holidays
Pride and partnership - an evolving process
Previous nature based school failures - many were too fringe, easily marginalised. Construction costs too high. Ego. Lack of academic rigour.
Made a list of mistakes form Bali they didn't want to make. It can be traumatic, it's stressful. Tough to conjure up a project like this but have a genuine desire to help. Montessori and Steiner have helped pave the way.
Need to be seen as serious, not fringe. Academic rigour is really important - you can learn calculus and stats in nature.
Unless Universities change it's hard for schools to get pathways so they are doing a blend of NCEA with the Green School Diploma to allow access to Uni
100% in Bali is Green School Diploma and Uni will take their students, but here it's not enough. In Bali 52 Universities came to recruit graduates - self starter, independent learner, self confident and determined. Some universities are listening but we lose so much talent to an antiquated machine.
They are moving from being the builder to the BoT. Roll early Feb was 47 and maybe have 65 by Term 3 and 100 for Term 1 2021. Want to continue to grow to perhaps 450-500 Yr1-13. Bali had a waiting list to get in. International school, but more and more people going to them.
Dylan Wijaya: a year 12 student attending St John's College in Hastings, New Zealand. For the past 3 weeks, he and 6 other students have been striving to create a cost-effective ventilator in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Called it Pear because it was like Apple, plus the Hawkes Bay is known for Pears.
Still at the brainstorming stage.
Lockdown has given him time to learn material at his own pace. Says he does 4hrs for the 6 hour day. More hands on approach plus time for hobbies
He is pursuing his purpose - to save lives
I really enjoyed this session - it reinforced my thinking around education and what education could look like. We need to make sure we take this opportunity to move forward, not take a step back into what we had. I'd love to work towards the idea of a marae as our school hub - more community involvement. More things to ponder!
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